AbstractIn this article, a second‐order system, which is affected by disturbances and uncertainties, with a saturating actuator is considered. A novel robust feedback control law is designed based on the sliding mode technique. The twisting and the continuous twisting algorithms are incorporated into the design, which is based on level curves of a Lyapunov function. The performance of the standard continuous twisting algorithm is greatly improved in the case that the initial condition of the system is far away from the origin. A parameter setting for the controller is given by establishing global finite‐time stability properties of the closed‐loop system origin. Feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach are indicated in a real‐world application as well as numerical simulation.